


Hold me (till the pains of life are gone)

by daigina



Category: SKAM (TV)
Genre: Gen, Suicide mention, Talk of Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-16
Updated: 2017-05-16
Packaged: 2018-11-01 14:23:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10923654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daigina/pseuds/daigina
Summary: Sana finds out what's been weighing on Elias





	Hold me (till the pains of life are gone)

**Author's Note:**

> HI this was written in like the course of a day because it was bouncing around in my head for so long so

It is almost mid-evening when she gets home from school. She and the girls had been doing homework and hanging out after, so it’s probably close to 17:00, she can’t really remember.

She does remember closing the door behind her with a sigh, toeing her shoes off, and reminding herself that she missed midday prayer because of school and needed to make it up before dinner. But before she reaches her bedroom, she walks past Elias’s. His door about half open and it’s deadly quiet, which is unusual for Elias. Usually, the door to his room is shut tight, the loud sounds of video games or his latest video project going radiating from inside.

So she can’t help but look.

And Elias has never been one to keep up with mosque, or pray all five times a day- or sometimes at all, really. Their parents hardly give him slack about it, stopped mentioning that he’s missed Friday night prayers for the umpteenth time in a row a long time ago.

So seeing Elias, sitting on his knees on a prayer rug in the middle of his room, his eyes closed, his hands in his lap, his mouth twitching fever so slightly as he recites to himself, hits Sana a little.

Even when they were children and their parents reminded them both to pray every day, and brought them to the mosque as a family, Elias would squirm more often than not. There were days when he would be lost in prayer, but just as often he would sigh, swallow loudly, peek around the room.

She can’t remember the last time she’s seen him so still. So quiet.

He leans forward, hands first, his head following to lie face down on the rug.

She doesn’t know why but seeing this seems- it feels different. Feels heavy. And as much as Sana wants to reach into Elias’s head right now and pull out what he’s thinking, she also knows interrupting him isn’t an option.

Later then.

Sana goes to her room.

-

It’s after dinner now, the dishes are done, their parents retired for the night, an early morning ahead of them.

Elias had been silent all dinner, which wasn’t usually his style. Answering their parents’ questions about school, tests, friends, with simple sentences and barely there smiles that were too quick to fade.

She finds him in the living room, a chadaar wrapped around his shoulders as he fiddles with his old video camera. He’s looking at the preview screen, Sana notices as she walks closer, playing back some footage she’s not close enough to see.

“Hei,” she says quietly. “What’s that?”

He looks up quickly, surprised. He hadn’t even noticed her so close to him. 

“Oh, uhm. It’s nothing. Just something the boys and I shot a while back for a school project. I, uh. I was going to delete it.” He closes the camera, sets it down on the bookshelf behind him. “What’s up with you, little sister?”

Sana raises her eyebrows and purses her lips a bit. “Nothing, really. German is a pain, but I’m crawling my way through it.” She sits down on the small sofa next to them, and Elias moves to the armchair next to her. Close, but not too much. She notices him fidgeting with his chadaar.

It had to be something weighing on him, and Sana is worried. She’d rarely, if ever, seen her brother so quiet, so weighed down. And even after just a few hours, it felt… big. Like what Elias wasn’t saying was sucking all the energy from the room. 

Elias was life; he was smiles and joking, playful teasing that sometimes went too far, pinching, dancing, and excited descriptions of his latest school project. Even when he was stressed out by school, he would fume and rant about things, and eventually fall into laughter. He was rarely so quiet. 

And she’s never been one to beat around the bush long.

“Elias, is something bothering you?”

He looks at her now, and she sees that his eyes are tired. Red rimmed and heavy with dark circles under them. 

What happened?

“Sana, I…” he sighs. 

He takes a while to answer, he looks off into the distance and he fidgets, pulling the blanket around him even tighter. Purses his lips, swallows, meets her eyes, looks away, and stares at nothing again. Like he’s searching for the answer, but can’t quite see it. 

Sana waits, silently. 

“Do you…,” he clears his throat. “Do you remember Even?” He meets her eyes again, and this time keeps them there. 

“Yeah,” she answers. “Of course.” 

Silence again. 

“He hasn’t been over in a long time,” she says quietly. Carefully. 

It has been a long time. Probably three months or more, which is almost an eternity, considering Elias’s friends, Even included, almost live at Elias and Sana’s house. Their mother would invite them to stay for dinner at least once a week and they would have a huge meal, all the boys talking and joking. Even would talk to Sana a little, even though she was usually quiet, save a few snappy remarks when Elias’s head got too big. And he would absolutely charm Mamma, complimenting her food and their home, and Elias would roll his eyes and the other boys would snigger. 

But Even stopped coming over at some point. Sana figured something happened because for a few weeks no one came over at all. And then when Elias’s friends came back it was like nothing had ever happened, except- 

Except Even wasn’t there anymore. 

And when their Mamma would ask after him, Elias would shrug it off, get defensive. 

_“I don’t know, Mamma. People get busy.”_

_“No, Mamma I haven’t seen him in a while. Nothing, Mamma, I don’t know.”_

_“He’s just not, Mamma, okay? There isn’t a reason.”_

But there was. Elias just wouldn’t say. 

“It’s about him,” Elias says to her, his voice low and quiet. “I don’t know- it’s.. it’s a lot. I can’t tell you everything.” 

“That’s okay,” Sana says. “Is Even okay? Or did he do something?” 

He breathes in deeply through his nose, lets it out just as slow. “No. He, uhm. He got hurt. Badly.” 

Sana sits up straighter in her chair. “Okay.. was there an accident? Was he attacked or- or, like, hurt by someone?” Sana couldn’t see Even getting into a fight. He radiated calmness, confidence, a sweetness that couldn’t be resisted. Who would hurt someone like that? 

“It wasn’t an accident,” Elias says, and Sana can see his eyes grow wet with tears. He clasps his hands together, his fingers tightening as they interlock. Elias’s voice is strained now, like he’s fighting not to let his grief show. “He hurt himself- he tried.. he tried to kill himself. Like, four days ago.” 

What? 

_What?_

Sana’s mouth falls open. She doesn’t know what to say. 

“I- what? How?” Sana stutters out. 

“Pills,” Elias says, shrugging. “He takes like, a lot of them, I guess, so he had. Like more than enough. But his dad found him pretty quick. So he’s not. He’s still alive.” 

That wasn’t what Sana meant- what she meant was how could this happen? How could this happen to Even? To anyone? 

It’s like a dam breaking. Elias keeps going, the information has been building up inside him and is only now overflowing. 

“And I- I feel like it’s my fault. I haven’t even really tried speaking to him in months. We’re like- like best friends. We were. And friends are supposed to be there, you know? Friends are supposed to help. And I didn’t help him. I didn’t want to, I didn’t want to know what was happening. I fucked over one of my closest friends over some really stupid bullshit. And this-” he chokes on his words for a moment, his breathing heavy.

A few tears begin to fall, and Sana leaves her chair to kneel in front of Elias. 

She’s never been in this position. It’s usually Elias comforting her- when she was bullied at five, when she got her first bad grade back at eleven, when she had her first real fight with Mamma at twelve. 

But now it’s her turn. 

She clasps their hands together, kisses his knuckles, and listens. 

“He didn’t deserve it- to like get to that place. Where he thought that was what he should do. But we let him get there, I think. And if like, anything was different- if his dad had found him later or, or if he’d taken more pills or done it on a different day- anything- he’d be gone right now. Like, really gone- forever. Not breathing or existing. And I’ve been thinking a lot about like what that means. All of it. And praying. Praying until I can’t feel my legs. And I don’t know- Sana, I don’t know anything anymore.” 

She lays her head down on his knee, their hands still clasped. She’s crying now, too. 

She speaks slowly, quietly, as if anything above a whisper might break him. 

And maybe it would. 

“I’m so, so sorry, Elias. But knowing these things- these why’s and how’s- they’re not for us. That’s for Allah, alone. You say it’s your fault, but it’s not. Believe me.“ 

She moves one hand to cup his cheek and makes him meet her eyes. ” _Believe me,_ Elias. I may not know everything- whatever you can’t tell me, that’s okay. What matters is the facts- the rest? It’s bullshit. And the facts are that you were a good friend to him, and you had your differences. But you care. And what’s happened, happened. And it’s awful, but. But all you can do is move forward and try to be a good friend again.” 

“Fuck,” Elias whispers and he grips Sana’s hands so tight, and she squeezes back. “I can’t- I don’t know how. I just. I fucking don’t.“ 

-

They stay up into the early hours. Talking. About prayer, about things in this world bigger than any one person. About Even. Stories and memories that bring smiles to their faces, even through the tears. 

Even, filming them, laughing. Even, learning how to make roti in their kitchen. Even, playing basketball with them outside of their apartment complex. 

It feels sad. But good. 

It feels like grieving. Grieving the hopelessness, the helplessness that they both felt. Grieving innocence. 

Somehow they both end up on the floor of the dim living room, Elias’s arm around his sister, her head tucked under his chin, the chadaar wrapped loosely around them both. 

Sana checks her phone. She glances up at Elias and says gently, "It’s 03:52. We should sleep. The sun will be up soon." 

Elias sighs. This night has been draining, and at this point, both of their eyes are heavy with sleep. And Sana is hesitant to break the spell of quiet, of grief, of vulnerability. But their parents would be up soon and neither she nor Elias would want to deal with that line of questioning. 

Not tonight. 

They hug before heading upstairs. A long, tight embrace, warm and full of meaning. Full of _I’m sorry_ s, _I love you_ s, and _thank you_ s. All the things they said tonight, and all the things they didn’t. 

And although she’s so tired, and she’s so weary, and just- just so sad- despite all of this, when she shuts her bedroom door behind her, she moves to her closet. She gets her prayer rug out, lays it down in her room. She performs wudhu, washes her hands and her face with a bottle of water on her desk, not daring to use the bathroom in case she wakes Mamma or Pappa. 

And she prays. Long. Silent. Still. 

She prays.


End file.
